


the cinnamon peeler's wife

by coloredink



Series: The Cinnamon Peeler [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: John is a Saint, M/M, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, possibly a graphic description of a minor surgery, references to cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-16
Updated: 2011-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:33:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink/pseuds/coloredink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Don't touch it," John warned, just as Sherlock lifted a hand. He opened his other eye. His expression softened. "Maybe in a few days. With gloves on."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the cinnamon peeler's wife

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from [The Cinnamon Peeler](http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2004/06/cinnamon-peeler-michael-ondaatje.html) by Michael Ondaatje.

John's tan is fading.

Too long in the fog and under grey skies. Too long away from the sand and the harsh hot sun. The nightmares are fading too, supplanted by new dreams of long-fingered stranglers in the dark and a well-dressed madman by a swimming pool. (Two well-dressed madmen, he supposes, if he wants to be precise, and Sherlock is always precise.) Soon there will be no trace of Afghanistan left on him at all except for the radiating scar on his shoulder. Sherlock wonders if he (himself) minds. Surely John doesn't mind; John never seems to resent the forward crawl of time. But Sherlock minds, because every little change is something new to catalogue about John, and someday his hard drive is going to run out of room, and then where will he store the new facts? He'll have to start deleting things about his cases, and then John will be more important than the cases, and nothing can be more important than the work. John won't like him anymore, without the work.

Sherlock lies next to John and traces the fading line across his wrist, over and over again.

"What are you doing?" John queries, as if he's indulging a small child that's decided to dig for dinosaur bones in the backyard.

"Thinking," says Sherlock, because he's agreed never to lie to John, but he can still obfuscate.

John knows, but John is still patient. "What about? If you don't mind telling me, that is," he adds, a little hastily, because sometimes he doesn't actually want to know what Sherlock is thinking, and Sherlock knows that.

Sherlock shifts. He's not sure he wants to tell John what he was thinking about. It wasn't very interesting. He lets his hand wander off, towards John's chest. His fingers glide across John's shoulder scar--an old, familiar friend and lover, by now, known by eyes and tongue and lips--and down his chest to the square of gauze still taped to the left side of John's abdomen. He circles it with his forefinger, lightly, and gives John a questioning look.

"Gloves," John reminds him, and Sherlock gives him a bright smile and slithers from the bed.

When Sherlock returns, properly attired in blue nitrile gloves, he gives John a kiss, because John likes those and Sherlock likes being able to convey his gratitude. He lingers for a while, until he's sure that John's received the message, and then turns his attention to the plaster. He peels it away carefully, while John's breathing doesn't change, revealing an angry red line, a little over an inch long. It reminds Sherlock of how thin and tight John's mouth goes when Sherlock's said or done something Not Good. The stitches are small black X's with little tails coming out of them. Sherlock brushes them gently, oh so gently, because he never wants to hurt John (but John hurt himself for Sherlock, and he did it willingly, because Sherlock wanted it, and thinking about it makes Sherlock's chest tight and his hands shake, and there isn't a semtex vest here that Sherlock can peel off and throw far, far away). John draws in a deep, trembling breath.

"Can I keep them?" Sherlock asks.

"Keep what?" John asks, sounding preoccupied. "Oh. Er. The stitches? Yes, I suppose. I used a non-absorbable thread."

"I would like that." Sherlock lays his head on John's hip and his hand next to the sutures, so that he can brush his thumb over the skin just below them. "Tell me about how you did it," he suggests. "The surgery."

"Oh, Christ." John blows a breath through his lips. "It's not very interesting, but--well, all right. I borrowed some things from work--scalpel, forceps, cautery tool. Lidocaine. Sterile drape. I had the gloves already." He gives Sherlock a wry look. "I had to clean the kitchen table, God knows what's been on it. _That_ was a chore. Then I sat up there, with my things to hand. Draped the area, swabbed it, gave myself a few shots of lidocaine. Cut in--"

"What did it look like?"

"The incision? Like any other incision, really. There was some blood, but I had the cautery tool. Useful little buggers, wish I'd had one in Afghanistan."

Sherlock has stopped moving so that he can listen better. "What did it smell like? When you cauterised the wound?"

"God, you're morbid, aren't you?" Sherlock tenses, but John's hand comes down into his hair and cards through the curls. "It smelled horrid. Like burning chicken and fingernails. So I cut in until I saw fat, and I cut some fat out, and dropped it in the custard dish, which I don't even know why we have one, but I didn't fancy putting it in a teacup and wondering forever afterward if I was drinking out of one that'd had bits of me in. I cauterised anything that was still bleeding, sewed it up, and then stuck a plaster over it. Nothing much to tell, really."

"And you took painkillers," Sherlock recalls.

"And I took a painkiller, yes. Why are you so fixated on that? Well, it probably wasn't that necessary," he concedes. He's still stroking Sherlock's hair. "But I rather felt I deserved it."

John deserves many things. He deserves least of all a madman in his bed that hurts him by wanting. Sherlock buries his face in John's hip and takes a deep breath. It comes out wrong.

"Hey." John's hand tightens in his hair. "What's wrong? Sherlock? Sherlock, look at me."

He looks, because he'll do anything for John (except run).

John takes in a sharp breath and runs his thumb over one of Sherlock's cheekbones. "Why--what's wrong? Was it something I said? You _did_ ask."

Sherlock shakes his head. He moves his blue-gloved hand away from John's sutures, because something's happening to him, that same feeling that suffused him at the pool, made him irrational and ineloquent, and he doesn't want to accidentally hurt John when he's like this. "I asked," he concludes, unhappily. "I wanted it, and you--John, why do you let me hurt you like this?"

"Hurt me?" John repeats, an annoying tendency of his when he's bewildered, which is frequent; he does it even though he knows that Sherlock hates it when he repeats something that Sherlock just said. Then he looks at Sherlock, really _looks_ , like he can see inside Sherlock's brain (is this what other people feel like when Sherlock looks at them?), and then he sits up, bracing himself on his arms. "Sherlock. I do not _let_ you do anything. I did this because I _wanted_ to."

Sherlock lets his expression convey his skepticism.

"I was the one with the scalpel." John crosses his arms and looks at Sherlock until he nods. "I did it myself, all by myself, and that's because it was a _gift_. From me to you. Because I wanted to, and I thought it would make you happy. Do you understand that?"

He tries, but he's not sure he does. John wouldn't be happy, wouldn't be _fine_ , if their positions were reversed, would he? He would worry, he would shout, if Sherlock cut off a piece of himself to give to John. (But of course, John would never ask. He'd never even want that. That's the difference between them, what makes John good, and Sherlock not so good.) Are the rules different for him? But he nods, finally, eyes closing, and lets himself use John's hip for a pillow again. "Will it scar?" he asks, quietly.

"Probably not."

Good. Sherlock takes comfort in that, at least.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Cinnamon Peeler Series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2084835) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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